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Seriously we need some sort of official twitter update concerning the powerplants. The news media from multiple sources are quoting different information based on different times, and it is really one big mess.

I just don't know what to believe any more.

Well... Japan's nuclear power industry has never been very open about their information. IIRC there was a plant incident a few years ago whose details were not available until a video of the plant's ruined interior was revealed. (Aha, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant)

Well... Japan's nuclear power industry has never been very open about their information. IIRC there was a plant incident a few years ago whose details were not available until a video of the plant's ruined interior was revealed. (Aha, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant)

Nikkei online had put out an article which read "9700 of the missing found alive/evacuated." It was a mistake and they have since corrected the article but it's still spreading around english twitter. The correct statement should be "9700 residents found alive/evacuated."

Measured NHK says it's still a critical situation despite no official reports of waste leakage.

In relation to above, I was always a little leery of the Japanese wire services getting info that I didn't hear on the TV or Radio or getting similar info very very fast.

Just watched Al Jazeera and France 24, didn't say anything we didn't hear. As opposed to more cautious NHK, they didn't highlight officials saying that the radiation levels in Tokyo having any dicernable effect on health. There was also more speculation of a meltdown occuring or highly possible, whereas I haven't seen that mentioned much in NHK or the major papers.

France 24 elaborated on citizen anger about TOPEC's being dodgy with the info, the Yomiuri is ridding that wave a bit as well, NHK hasn't highlighted conflict or theatrical stories of struggle/survival, focusing largely on Press Conference coverage, analysis of scientific info and danger and general safety information, stats/figures and livelihood disruption.

I've been on and off the phone with a friend who says the plant's radiation that escapes into the air would not be lethal enough to kill people around the area.

Can anyone confirm this as true or false?

A press conference details the following amounts of radiation in the plants' immediate vicinity. I don't know the level of dilution that the wind and air is giving it.http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/
Space between units #2 and 3: 30 mSv
Near unit #3: 400 mSv
Near unit #4: 100 mSv

Yomiuri reports that a health research center in Shinjuku in Tokyo has been reading 0.035 micro sv until yesterday, and registered a spike up to 0.809 micro sv by 10 AM this morning, and it's now gone down to 0.151 micro sv.

The previous high ever recorded there was 0.079 micro sv.

Keeping this in perspective, the highest reading right next to the plant was 400 milli sv, which is 500000 times higher.

And even 400 milli sv is only seriously dangerous if you are exposed to it for more than a few hours.